Call On Me (23 page)

“You’re like a
broken record, you know that? Things
have
changed. Now you
have to deal with that.”

“What am I
supposed to do?” Ali demanded, frustrated.

“Talk to him
might be a start.”

Guiltily, Ali
dropped her gaze, but there was no hiding it from her sister, who
snorted. “Oh, for pity’s sake. Are you avoiding the talk?” When Ali
didn’t answer, she picked up the empty packet and threw it at her,
where it bounced off Ali’s shoulder. “You dumb sheila. Ghost tried
to talk to you and you freaked out, didn’t you?”

“Where’s the
support?”

“I’m your
sister, not your therapist! I tell you how it is, not make you come
up with the answer yourself.” Exasperated, Lori grabbed the can of
Diet Coke.

“Don’t you
throw that at me,” Ali said, half-jokingly.

“Wouldn’t waste
it like that.” Lori took a deep swallow of Diet Coke before placing
the now empty can on the table. Leaning both elbows on the table,
she clasped her hands and looked across them at Ali. “You need to
figure out where you want to go from here.”

“I don’t want
to talk about things.”

“You’d have to
one of the first women in history who doesn’t. It’s usually the men
who avoid ‘the talk’, isn’t it?” She actually made air quotes.

“Apparently
not.” Ali flicked the empty packet with her finger.

“So what’s
going to happen now?” Lori demanded. “You’re going to avoid Ghost
for the rest of your life? Isn’t going to happen, I’m telling you
that now. When that man decides to do something, nothing will sway
him. Ali, he isn’t going to let this go, you know that.”

“He’s so damned
stubborn,” Ali muttered.

Lori studied
her curiously for several minutes before asking abruptly, “So what
does he want?”

Toying with the
empty packet, Ali didn’t answer. She knew exactly what he wanted,
but…

“Ali.”

“Fine.” Ali
lifted her gaze to her sister’s. “He wants us to be…”

When she didn’t
say anything further, Lori raised both brows inquiringly.

“He wants us to
be…He wants…” There was no way she could stop the blush from
seeping into her cheeks. Nor the warmth that surged suddenly,
unexpectedly, and very unwelcomingly through her nether regions.
“He wants us to continue.”

Lori looked
blank. “Continue what? Fighting?”

“No. He wants
us to continue being…” Sweet baby Jesus, this was so hard to say.
There was only one thing for it. “Lovers,” she finished in a
rush.

Lori’s eyes
widened a little, but then she got a strange expression on her face
followed by a slight smile.

“You think it’s
funny?” Ali was taken aback.

“Of course not.
But Ali, is it really a huge surprise?”

Ali looked
blankly at her.

“You’ve been
friends for years. You’ve always had each other’s backs.”

“So? Adam
didn’t marry his friend Keith and they’ve been friends since they
were in nappies. In fact, Keith married Jenny.”

“Dunce.” Lori
shook her head, the small smile still hovering around her mouth.
“This is different.”

“Because Adam
and Keith didn’t have sex over the bonnet of Keith’s car?”

Lori’s mouth
fell open. “
What?
”

“What?”
Realising what she’d said, Ali, flustered and mortified, tried to
backtrack. “Just that Keith and Adam didn’t-”

“You and Ghost
had sex on the bonnet of your
car
?”

“No…well…maybe…I don’t…this is nothing to do with it!” Leaping up,
Ali hurried over to the sink to wash out her mug. “The thing is
we’re friends and becoming lovers changes everything.”

“Wait on one
minute.” Eyes closing, Lori put a hand to her head. “I just need to
re-centre myself.”

Ali glared at
her.

Lori cracked
open one eye. “Don’t even think of leaving this kitchen right now,
because I swear I will chase you around the house until we hash
this out.”

“Hash what
out?”

“Stop playing
the avoidance game.”

“I’m not.”
Sulking just a little, Ali crossed her arms and leaned back against
the sink. “See, this is what happens. Everyone goes weird.”

Lori sighed.
“You had sex with your best friend. He wants to take it further and
you don’t. Why not?”

“It
changes
things. Haven’t you been listening?”

“That’s all I
ever hear. I want to know what
you
intend to change and
how.”

“I’m not
changing anything.”

“Everyone has
to change something sometime. Now you have to decide what you’re
going to change about this situation with Ghost.”

Ali threw her
hands up in the air. “Sweet baby Jesus, Lori! What do you want me
to do? Became lovers with Ghost?”

Lori shrugged.
“Is it such a stretch for you two?”

Ali gaped at
her. “Are you serious?”

“Sure.” Lori
shrugged again. “You always hung out together, did things together.
What’s so different about being lovers?”

“I’m starting
to wonder if you had the same sex talk from Mum that I did.”

Lori blushed
just a little. “Okay, the lovers’ thing is new. Different-”

“There! See?
Different.”

“There’s
nothing wrong in doing something different. Really, Ali, you’re not
making sense.” Just as exasperated as her sister, Lori threw her
hands up in the air. “So you hang out together, you have fun, you
have sex. Isn’t that an automatic step in a relationship that goes
further than plain friendship?”

“But things
change
.”

“Of course they
do! You don’t still run around the neighbourhood pretending you’re
Wonder Woman, do you? Which, by the way, wasn’t a good look. That
muffin top you sported in the WW costume was just wrong.”

Ali glared at
her. “Says Supergirl with her thighs bulging out of her
stockings.”

“No need to get
nasty.”

Ali closed her
eyes. “I cannot believe we’re doing this right now.”

“Hey, it’s a
sister thing.” Relaxing, Lori grinned.

Opening one
eye, Al scrutinized her. “Are you finished?”

“Dragging up
the WW thing with the muffin top? Sure.”

Ali rolled her
eyes, but she had to admit that moment of sisterly arguing and
fun-poking had eased some of her tension.

Shame it came
ricocheting back as soon as Lori opened her mouth. “So, what are
you afraid of?”

“Who said I’m
afraid of anything?”

“
Ali
!”

“This is the
problem with sisters,” Ali informed Minx, who appeared around the
corner of the kitchen bench. “Think they know you so well.”

“Because I do,”
Lori said. “Stop farting around and tell me what the huge problem
is.”

Closing her
eyes, Ali drew in a deep breath, fighting for control, fighting to
find the words, fighting her own uncertainties. Mind practically
buzzing, she couldn’t concentrate properly because Ghost’s face
pinged right onto her inner radar at that precise second and all
she could see were his hot eyes, that familiar smile, but those
eyes, so hot, so passion-filled, so not the way he used to look at
her.

He’d never made
her insides feel like they were writhing, he’d never made heat pool
in her loins, and he’d certainly never had her pulses pounding just
at the memory of him inside her.
Deep
inside her.

But now he did,
he did all that and so much more. And that was good. Bad. Good. Ah
crap, bad. It confused her, stirred up her emotions, made her
brains feel like scrambled eggs. And her womanhood ache.

“Crap on a
stick!” Opening her eyes, she thrust one hand through her hair,
dislodging the bun so that her hair spilled over her shoulders.
“Crap crap crap!”

“Okay,” Lori
drawled, “Maybe we’re getting somewhere now.”

“You don’t
understand!” Frustrated, Ali whirled around to glare at her
sister.

“Yeah, you’re
right. I don’t. So make me understand.”

“If we become
lovers, things change. Then he breaks up with me and things are
broken
. Now do you see?”

Scratching her
jawline, Lori studied her for a whole minute before replying, “So
you’re afraid.”

“I kid you not.
I
am
afraid.” Ali slumped back against the bench.

“So you’re
telling me it’s only fear that holds you back from exploring this
further with Ghost?’

“Only fear?”
Ali sighed. “
Only
fear?”

“You know, Ali,
I love you. You’re my only sister. But some days you can be so
dense and tunnel visioned.”

“Huh?”

“For goodness
sake, have you thought about this?” Lori waved one hand in the
direction of Ghost’s house. “Things can’t be the same between you
now anyway. That encounter changed it, so you have to suck it up
and move forward.”

That was the
problem, Ali didn’t want to move forward. She wanted things to go
back to the way they were, but that wasn’t going to happen, damn
it.

It was so
obvious and she knew it, so she simply glared at her sister.

Unfazed, Lori
continued, “The thing you have to decide is whether you’re going to
move forward with or without Ghost.”

“Without,” she
said immediately.

With a groan,
Lori dropped her forehead into her hand. “Are you listening to
yourself?”

“I said it,
didn’t I? What’s the problem?”

Getting up from
the chair, Lori walked around the kitchen bench and right up to
Ali, who eyed her warily, especially when her sister grabbed her
upper arms and leaned forward.

“Pushing Ghost
aside means pushing him out of your life,” Lori stated quietly, her
gaze steady. “It means he’s no longer important.”

Ali’s eyes
widened. “Ghost is import!”

“Is he?”

“Of
course.”

“So you’re not
pushing him out of your life?”

“No.”

“Because it
looks to me as though you are.”

“That’s
ridiculous-”

Lori’s gave her
a small shake. “Then, you drongo, you need to take careful stock of
your life and where you want it to go. If you don’t have an ounce
of feeling for Ghost – which I seriously doubt – then you need to
be able to watch another woman come into his life and maybe set up
house with him.
Permanently
.”

A chill went
through Ali. Another woman? Permanently?

“Yeah.”
Obviously reading her expression, Lori nodded. “It means he isn’t
important enough to you, certainly not important enough to take a
risk on. If you’re not prepared to take a risk on him, to take this
further and explore it, to push your own fears aside and put
everything you have into a relationship with Ghost and make it
work, then maybe it’s true, he isn’t important enough. But you need
to decide that, Ali. I can’t do it for you and Ghost certainly
can’t do it.”

Dry-mouthed,
Ali stared at her.

Releasing her,
Lori stepped back and held out her hands to the side. “On one hand,
a friendship that’s already changed. Do you leave it behind?” She
dropped her cupped hand slightly and lifted her other hand. “Or do
you give the relationship a go?” She dipped and lifted both hands
in a parody of scales. “You need to weigh up what’s important to
you, Ali. And even more…”

Too choked with
emotions to answer, Ali could only blink at her.

“You need to
decide how much Ghost means to you.” Lori regarded her soberly.
“You need to decide if you’re going to really let him go or meet
him halfway.”

Unsure what to
reply, her mind whirling with the previously un-thought of
possibilities of Ghost moving on without her, Ali could only bite
her lip. Even weirder, she suddenly couldn’t see her sister through
a blur of tears.

Lori laid one
hand gently on her shoulder. “Only you can decide, Ali. You know
Ghost, you know yourself. Do you care enough about him, have
feeling enough, to give him a go? Because that’s the whole crux of
the matter. You need to decide if you have any feelings at all for
him. Only you can do that.” Stepping back, she gave her an
affectionate pat on the cheek before picking up Minx and walking
out of the kitchen.

Leaving Ali
alone with her thoughts.

Thoughts that
now had new implications. Feelings for Ghost? She didn’t know, she
honestly didn’t…okay, that was a lie. Wiping away the tear that
spilled down her cheek, Ali stared unseeingly across the room. The
truth was that her feelings were all mixed up. She didn’t know what
she felt. She knew it hurt to think of Ghost moving on with another
woman, but would that be better than risking her own heart and
maybe having it broken? Because if Ghost broke her heart, she
honestly didn’t think she’d ever get over it.

That meant that
Ghost was more important to her than she’d realised.

Pushing away
from the sink, she walked over to the tissues and pulled one from
the box, drying her eyes and blowing her nose before opening the
security screen and stepping outside into the evening, welcoming
the cool breeze that blew across her hot cheeks.

Moving to the
edge of the veranda, she automatically glanced across to Ghost’s
house, able to hear the low murmur of male voices but unable to
make out the words. Probably Matt and Ghost having a beer outside,
something they did at least once a week. ‘Men’s business’, Ghost
had always said with that twinkle in his eyes, to which she’d
replied pertly, ‘Men’s gossip’. That twinkle had just grown
brighter.

She loved that
twinkle, that hint of mischief, that spark of fun in his brown
eyes.

Leaning against
the veranda post, she looked out over the darkened garden. Out of
the two male voices she could easily pick out the deep tones of
Ghost. His voice drifted through the night air to wind around her,
soothing her, and with a sigh she leaned her head against the
post.

In the quiet of
the night she let her thoughts wander, let them meander where they
wanted, allowed them to settle and then move again, drifting
through her mind until they finally set down and made themselves
clear to her conscious.